User blog:EmpyrealInvective/Emp's Halloween Horr-tacular (2017)
Introduction It is very close to October and you know what that means (we are one month closer to the inevitable heat death of the universe), it’s time for Emp’s annual Horr-tacular! As always, I’m going to be changing things up a little bit as I've done for Horr-tacular 2014, 2015, and 2016. It'll still be the basic premise of me watching one (or more) horror movies each day in October, but there will be some added themes. Now that that little bit is out of the way, let’s get to what everyone has been dreading. The Horr-tacular and how each day of the week will result in me focusing on a different type of horror movie. Monster Movie Monday: Mondays will focus on movies that revolve around well-known monsters from urban legends, mythology, or popular culture. Too Lazy Tuesday: I’m too lazy to seek out a movie on these days. Why don’t you guys suggest something (any type of horror film) and I’ll watch it. Wreck a Franchise Wednesday: Wednesdays will be dedicated to movies from generally successful franchises that were abysmal. Thursday Fursday: These days will be all about animal themed horror. Scared of dogs, there’s a movie for you. Hate cats? I got a film for that too. Hate service helper monkeys? Why? What kind of person hates service animals? I suggest you sit down and watch Monkeyshines while reflecting on your life choices. Foreign Film Friday: Like the title suggests, Fridays will be all about horror films from around the world. I’ll try to choose movies from different countries to get some variation. Showdown Saturday: These days I’ll be seeing how two similar movies stack up. Whether it’s having the same creator, the same premise, or a similar theme (will Lem Kavizinsky go up against Uwe Boll again?) Cinema Sunday: Cinema Sunday will feature movies that were released in 2017. 2017 has been a year of ups-and-downs for the horror genre, let’s see what I can turn up. Hope to get some good/bad recommendations and kick off this Halloween season right. 1/10/17 (Cinema Sunday): Get Out (2017): I enjoyed this one, the unbroken shot at the start does set up a good tone for the paranoia and uncertainty. It opens with a black man being lost in the suburbs and trailed by a car before being abducted. A majority of the characters' earlier interactions in the film do an excellent job of setting up the tension and uncomfortableness of the situation. I enjoyed how cameras became a method for exposing the reality of the situation as well as the silver spoon being used as a constant trigger. Jordan Peele did an excellent job of punctuating the movie with comedy (that actually works in the horror movie) and slowly ramping up the tension. It’s one of the few movies that works on giving explanation to the ‘dumb’ character tropes in a way that feels believable and in keeping with their character. My only real concern is with the end of the movie. It does devolve into a bit of a brawl that really felt out of place. Given that the movie up to about two-thirds in works on setting up a more atmospheric uncertainty, the last section just felt a bit out of place. That being said, the movie ended on a note that I wasn’t expecting which was refreshing as I had thought in was going to have a Night of the Living Dead-style ending. Overall, I’d recommend it as a pretty effective thriller. 2/10/17 (Monster Movie Monday): The Bye Bye Man: So let me be truthful here, I’ve already seen this film and since I knew I was going to be busy doing real life stuff today, I decided to have this going on in the background while I adult. Is that unfair to the movie? No. This movie is terrible. It feels like a Slenderman knockoff that they tried to pass of as real. With the tagline of: ‘Don’t say it, don’t think it’, they should probably add ‘don’t watch it, don’t waste time on it.’ This has some really bad effects (cgi blood, a terrible-looking cgi monster, etc.). To put it into perspective, I don’t have any experience with how to make computer-generated images so I try to give movies the benefit of the doubt, but when I look at this, even I know it’s bad. Spoilers: The Bye Bye Man gives the protagonist Tourette’s Syndrome so he both says it (the Bye Bye Man) and thinks it (once again, about the Bye Bye Man) towards the end of the movie. This begs the question, why not do it at the start as it obviously makes him a lot more effective? All in all, this is riddled with ineffective jumpscares, a weak plot, and lazy/lackluster marketing. 3/10/17 (Too Lazy Tuesday): Ghostbusters (2016): Welp, gotta thank my sister for this one. She recommended it and I watched it. I did not enjoy this. I think my biggest issue is that the comedy falls flat on so many levels which is kind of disappointing as I’ve gotten a few laughs out of Bridesmaids. As that’s the main strength of Ghostbusters (that it’s a horror/comedy and mixes both so well), this is pretty disappointing. Even if you don’t compare it to the original, it still feels flat. A lot of this feels like the actors were allowed to riff and play off each other, but they didn’t really regulate which lines should stay in and just left a majority there which ends up with joke fatigue. The cameos also feel a bit forced and I’m not sure how they work. Are they meant as a wink and a nudge to audience? The trailer sets up the movie as taking place thirty years after the first Ghostbusters, but it seems in that time, almost everyone forgot about the giant marshmallow man that attacked the city and the time everyone used singing to animate the statue of liberty to march across New York City (kinda hard to forget about in my book). If Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd are meant to play different characters, it still raises questions of what happened to the original group. I won’t wrap this up by saying it’s the worst movie I’ve ever seen, nowhere near that, but it was a pretty big disappointment. Fun fact: Bill Murray (after Ghostbusters II) effectively shut down any sequels to the original series and I get the feeling this was more like an attempt to cash in on the IP and that the movie came second. I really hope this doesn’t get any sequels as Ghostbusters has had a bumpy go since its start with Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II). Gotta say, I am not disappointed I’d avoided this one up till now. I really wasn’t missing much. 4/10/17 (Wreck a Franchise Wednesday): Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes Evil Lamp? Evil lamp. There’s really not much more to say… Actually there is. Despite the fact that the house implodes at the end of Amityville 3-D, a bunch of priests at the start of this one are performing an exorcism in the house and manage to evict (I will not apologize for that wordplay) the evil spirit into a lamp. Wacky shenanigans ensue when the lamp is sold at a yard sale where it darkens the lives of a family. I think the biggest issue here is that it still feels like a joke even when they try to escalate the tension by having the lamp kill people. When the lamp starts possessing more dangerous objects (like an oven and a garbage disposal), it starts to try and redeem itself, but since it frequently cuts to shots of the lamp with ominous music playing, it feels like this was a bet that got out of hand in which someone has to try and make a lamp scary or they’ll lose 20 bucks. Comically enough, this is the only sequel in the Amityville Horror movie franchise to be based on the original book. Let that sink in for a second, John G. Jones wrote a book in which an evil lamp strangles someone with its extension cord. Remember that the next time you’re writing something and think it’s too ridiculous. Never forget that John G. Jones wrote a 420 page novel about an evil lamp. It’s kind of inspiring if you think about it. 5/10/17 (Thursday Fursday): Dogs (1976): Dogs is basically Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, just replacing birds with dogs. It also features a scene where a dog attacks a woman in the shower (ala Hitchcock’s Psycho). It follows Harlan Thompson, a Biology professor who believes that dogs may be driven mad by pheromones released by the Campus’s linear accelerator. This results in the dogs forming a ravenous pack which attack the town and force a desperate struggle for survival. Tor be honest, there isn’t a lot to say about this movie. Despite the premise, it follows a pretty predictable pattern. Dogs appear, attack a helpless person, and kill them. Rinse, repeat for the next hour and you have the movie. The practical effects are good, it just feels a bit bland after the third time. I will say, there’s one scene where a dog tackles a man through a glass door that allows the pack to enter the building where the students have barricaded themselves which looked pretty technical. Also in an odd coincidence, this movie shares a similar ending to Amityville Horror 4: The Evil Escapes. Seriously, this is the second movie in a row to wrap up with the sequel bait that cats are evil/murderous which fails to deliver. This movie failed to sell at the theaters and the sequel was scrapped. This is probably for the best as the cat’s meow at the end is ridiculously bad (on par with Jaws 4 and the roaring shark). 6/10/17 (Foreign Film Friday): Ghost Train (2006) Ghost Train was recommended by ClericofMadness. It revolves around a cursed train ticket that results in the death of everyone who is in contact with it. This one was a bit hard to get into because the only source I found had the English in subtitles and the translations were less than stellar (“This time you derange the railroad schelude (sic), and confused thousens (sic) of people.”). Additionally the subtitles were a bit behind the rest of the movie which resulted in me playing the guessing game to figure out who was saying what and why. The movie definitely has a Ju-On or Ringu feel to it with the protagonist trying to learn about the ghost’s backstory before it’s too late. Unfortunately I think the movie lost it for me when one the the character’s was pushed in the path of the train and they had enough time to exposition the shit out of another character and warned them about the ghost as a train rolled over him. I do think the audio delay really spoiled the atmosphere for me as I would know when a jumpscare was coming ten seconds in advance and this one felt a bit too much like they were hitting the Japanese ghost story tropes a bit too hard (it has a half-naked, yowling ghost child). Lovecraft shoutout! On one of the books Nana is researching, you can see it’s from Miskatonic University which is featured prominently in Lovecraft’s stories. This movie happened to be a very good lead in for the movie showdown tomorrow. 7/10/17 (Showdown Saturday): Lovecraft-oween A celebration is in order, this is the 100th day of the Halloween Horr-tacular. So let’s celebrate with a Lovecraftian Brawl-for-all! A day late and a dollar short, unfortunately we’re a bit too late for the H.P. Lovecraft film festival, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a marathon of our own and pick out favorites. Here are five short films based off of Lovecraft’s stories. H.P. Lovecraft’s Pickman’s Model by Joseph Kwong won a Horror Fest Film contest in 2012. The dialogue feels a bit stilted (“That’s not a painting… That’s a self-portrait… That’s Pickman… feeding!”), but it does a good job of setting up Lovecraft’s story in a new light and telling it in a more active sense. The animation and voice acting does weaken it all a bit for me. Traveling back to the 80’s, we have this adaptation of The Music of Eric Zann by John Strysik and Robert Rothman. The music (as expected) is the strongest part of this short film and its usage of lines from the original story does enhance the film. Unfortunately the special effects when it came time to show the monsters that Eric Zann’s music was keeping at bay, it really went for a more surreal special effect which was a bit disappointing as was naming the protagonist Charles Dexter Ward. The next fan film of Lovecraft’s The Outsider is presented as a long lost silent film. Unfortunately it’s pretty obvious that this was a recently shot film due to the quality and and effects, but it still is pretty engaging. It’s shot in a first person perspective and uses title cards with parts of the original story to set the stage. The repeating sounds can be a bit grating, but it’s a pretty close adaptation which is nice. Let’s switch things up even more with a motion comic of Lovecraft’s The Rats in the Walls. Jeremy Zahn does a good job and the fact that they incorporate stills from Darkest Dungeon and snips of music from Dark Souls really adds to the comic (they properly cite it). There is some censorship of the cat’s name to Mr. Blackman which can be a bit jarring, but not too big a deal (at least not to me… the comments though…) The narrator Wayne June (who also narrated Darkest Dungeon) does a fantastic job here. I really enjoyed this one. Let’s wrap it up with a black and white film from 1997. As The Hound is one of my top ten favorite Lovecraft stories, I had high hopes here for the short film by Anthony Penta. Shot in Michigan that premiered at the Lovecraft Film Festival (1998). The reading was well-performed although it did skip a few sections and change a few words along the way. The reveal of the entombed monster also was a bit disappointing as it was just a skeleton that they had sprayed with blood, but all in all, I think it did a good job with the music and the narration. Interestingly enough, I think the best Lovecraft adaptation is The Rats in the Walls. The narrative voice is excellent, the Darkest Dungeon stills combined with the author’s own artwork is descriptive, and the Dark Souls soundtrack allows for a moody reading. It’s worth noting that Jeremy Zahn also has an adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu that is also narrated by Wayne June which is equally enjoyable so get out there, celebrate Halloween with some Lovecraft and see if you can’t dig up any other short films that might entertain you. 8/10/17 (Cinema Sunday): Rings (2017) What can I say about Rings other than why was this a necessary sequel? After The Ring Two, I would have thought the franchise was dead (it was poorly received and not very good in my book), but apparently this ghost isn’t going away any time soon so let’s watch a sequel to a sequel that has a twelve year break in-between movies and has been delayed multiple times I think my biggest issue was how the movie was advertised. I have a tendency to watch the trailers before each movie just to set up everything and this one felt pretty disingenuous. A major drive in the original movie is that the protagonist has seven days left to build up the tension. There really isn’t a lot of tension in the new film as they don’t really do a good job showing the passage of time (I couldn't tell you how many days passed in this one since the protagonist got the "seven days" call.). Also the plane scene is just the cold open to the movie and really doesn’t have any plot significance on the story itself which is kind of disappointing as that was set up as the climax of the trailer. The movie itself relies on a lot of unearned jumpscares and musical stingers. As this is the third time I’ve mentioned jumpscares in a negative light, I’d like to say why I dislike them. A jumpscare should be earned and come from a place where the audience knows there is danger. The anticipation builds the scene up and makes it dramatic. If something just randomly jumps out (a friend-jumpscare, a frumpscare), it tends to startle, but it doesn’t really create a lasting effect as none of the audience is going to be concerned that the friend is going to re-appear. Look at the scenes from Jaws and Alien. Both are a present and constant threat. Their inclusion in a sudden moment sticks with the audience. Really, there isn’t much to say about Rings (2017). The acting is pretty weak, the jumpscares feel forced (a hallucination bird randomly hits a car windshield), and the twist is spoiled in the trailers. 9/10/17 (Monster Movie Monday): Monster Squad Thanks to Vngel W for recommending Monster Squad. Having recently watched the first season of Stranger Things and getting ready for the second, this is pretty good to tide me over until then. This movie is dripping 80’s (being from the 80's, of course it is). I wouldn’t be surprised if the monsters bled Rubik’s Cubes, cocaine and votes for Ronald Reagan. It’s got practical effects, a lot of 80’s tropes (psychotic bullies and a posse of plucky kids with a fascination for horror movie monsters ala The Lost Boys), and montages. The movie didn’t open to great reviews in 1987 (It was a good year I hear), but it’s developed a bit of a cult following and it’s not hard to see why. The film has a lot of cheesy/entertaining moments. A werewolf gets blown up with dynamite, Swamp Thing gets blasted with a shotgun, and kids fight off vampires with bows and arrows. Really, I think what I enjoy about it most is that it’s got a lot of heart. The characters seem to grow throughout the movie with their own arcs and while the plot’s a bit forced at time, it does move along at a pretty steady clip without dragging. If you got the time, it’s definitely worth a watch. If you have less time, but still want to watch, there’s a truncated version above that’s been cut to about an hour long. A fun fact to wrap this up, Liam Neeson was originally considered for the role of Dracula, but those plans eventually fell through (I think a bunch of wolves kidnapped his daughter in Europe and threatened his synthetic skin experiment or something like that). There’s also references to Browning and Lucio Fulci's Zombi in a movie poster. 10/10/17 (Too Lazy Tuesday): Green Room Special thanks to HumboldtLycanthrope for this one. Green Room is a tense, gritty, and gory movie that follows a band who gets trapped in a green room after witnessing a murder by white supremacists which is headed up by Sir Patrick Stewart. The film follows their struggle for survival. This is a film from Jeremy Saulnier who did the excellently-received Murder Party which I have yet to see (maybe…). The opening does an excellent job of setting up the characters in the band. They’re punk rock to the core, even if their insistence of being underground and having no social media presence is crushing them to obscurity and poverty. The movie ramps up the suspense and punctuates them with bloody climaxes with each new struggle setting up a new plateau. The gallows humor is on point throughout the movie as well and adds in poignant punches with weary line delivery. Fun facts: This movie has a lot of nods to punk rock. The rendition of the Dead Kennedys “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” was actually played by the actors. Additionally the movie poster is slightly reminiscent of The Clash’s London Calling album cover. If you have the stomach for it, I would strongly suggest giving this one a watch. 11/10/17 (Wreck a Franchise Wednesday): Hellraiser: Hellworld As I already watched Hellraiser: Revelations, I decided to punish myself with the next worse thing, Hellraiser: Hellworld. When I say that this movie is a disappointment, I mean it. There’s no real hyperbole here. I think the biggest issue is that this movie really isn’t a Hellraiser movie (more on that later). The movie revolves around a group of gamers being invited to a party after completing a puzzle in the online game. At the party, the characters are picked off one by one by the Cenobites. The big twist at the end is that all the characters were drugged at the start of the party and are hallucinating while being buried underground. The character’s deaths happen to coincide with them suffocating in their caskets. If you’re asking yourself why five separate people all hallucinate Pinhead, Chatterbox, and Bound when exposed to a hallucinogen, then you’re putting more thought into this than the producers of the movie. The script this movie was originally slated to be was called Dark Can’t Breathe. It was later adapted (i.e. shoe-horned) into the Hellraiser series and the iconic monsters were just thrown in. The script is in no way related to the Hellraiser series. While the same can be said of Hellraiser: Deader, this one just feels a bit cheaper (which is saying a lot since both films have been panned). In short, this movie is one of a long line of failures for Hellraiser, a series that started off strong with unnerving visuals and subtexts. To say it’s a disappointment is an understatement. 12/10/17 (Thursday Fursday): The Birds I’m actually a bit surprised I haven’t reviewed Alferd Hitchcock’s The Birds already in the four years I’ve been doing this. In case you’re not familiar with the premise, The Birds follows a town that is being besieged by hundreds of birds and peoples struggle for survival. I first saw the movie when I was younger and it’s always stuck with me. It does a great job of building tension and I think the scene where Tippi Hedren is trapped in a phone booth watching the devastation unfolding around her is one of the best scenes in the movie. The aerial shot at the end of the movie also feels well-designed and gives new meaning to the term a bird’s-eye view. I really don’t have much more to say about the film without giving away tool much, but I did stumble across this little tidbit of information when I was researching the movie. Apparently Rod Taylor says that the seagulls were given a mixture of wheat and whiskey to keep them placid and in place for their scenes. So if you’re watching the movie on the link I included above and you see a bunch of seagulls, there’s a strong likelihood that those birds are as drunk as a skunk (nature’s alcoholic go-to animal apparently). 13/10/17 (Foreign Film Friday): Black Sunday It's Friday the thirteenth, and you guys know what that means... Nothing! I didn't manage to find a foreign knock off Friday the 13th film in time so I had to do the originally planned movie. Let’s jet over to Italy to watch a vampire movie by the legendary Mario Bava. Black Sunday was recommended by Jake888 and I can see why. The black-and-white film was banned for eight years when it was first released due to its violent/disturbing content (more on that later). So let’s examine why this film has gotten critical acclaim and is considered one of Barbara Steele’s best roles. Black Sunday (alt. title Mask of Satan) follows a woman who was killed for being a vampire and her quest for vengeance/rebirth. The establishing shots are great and the movie does a good job of building up the tension. We know the vampire Asa Vadja's goal is to possess Katia (both roles are played by Barbara Steele), and we’re left to watch as her machinations unfold. Why was it banned? The answer to that is pretty simple. There are a few scenes that revolve around eye-piercing (apparently driving a stake through their eye is the only way of truly killing a vampire). There is also a scene in which someone is burned alive that is fairly graphic. Finally, in the subtitles, there’s a pretty strong implication that the two villains have an incestuous relationship. What’s the takeaway with all this, it’s probably that Game of Thrones would not have flown in the 1960’s. 14/10/17 (Showdown Saturday): It VS. It It (1990) vs. It (2017) Twenty-seven years after the original movie, Stephen King’s It returns for a remake. My friend Joe recommended the original It and Derpyspaghetti (and others) recommended that I watch the remake. I decided to just have them go up against each other to try and figure out which one I like more. It (1990): If we’re giving points here, Tim Curry’s excellent as Pennywise. It really looks like he’s having the best time hamming it up as the killer clown (from outer space) and gives him a bit of a more unsettling feel. Pennywise works because while he is creepy, there is a comical aspect to him. Like many of the clown-murderers will attest to, the key to success is being innocuous. I think the biggest drawback to the movie is its length (it’s a made-for-tv movie adaption of a 1000+ page book) and the second half featuring the adults returning to Derry to take down the clown misses a lot of points for me. I think the strongest section of Stephen King’s story is the children’s struggle against Pennywise. It (2017): This adaptation has a lot more easter eggs and subtle nods (the number 27 for example appearing in a lot of promotional material). The slideshow scene where Pennywise comes out of a projection reminds me a lot of “The Sun Dog”. Bob Gray’s eyes changing colors to match his mom’s eyes when he’s talking to Georgie is a great piece of minutia. I feel like this adaptation is closer to the novel than the tv movie (whether that’s due to content being deemed inappropriate or stylistic decisions is up for debate). I will say that all the pop-up scares and musical stinger accompaniment did start to grate on me after a while (like a lot). Winner: This is hard for me to say as I love Tim Curry’s performance, but I feel like It (2017) is a closer adaptation to the original. It doesn’t have everything down (which is fine, we really didn’t need a sewer orgy scene or a character smothering a baby), but it does feel like this is a more focused rendition. Although it’s a bit unfair to judge the former movie based on the fact that the adults returning to Derry to fight a giant spider was where I found most of my criticisms, I still am interested to see how the sequel turns out. All in all, while neither film is perfect, I’m still leaning towards the former version. It may not be as true to the source material, but Curry’s performance is great and encapsulated why Pennywise worked (because he’s luring in children in and then using their fears to feed on them). Either is an entertaining movie, but in the end, you have to go with your gut and my gut says that the made-for-tv movie is going to stick with me longer than the 2017 version. 15/10/17 (Cinema Sunday): Wish Upon For the sake of honesty, I will say that I originally planned to watch Mother! for this, but upon viewing it, I realized that (other than the ending), it really isn’t a horror film. It’s more like an art film about Christianity’s book of Genesis. So where does that leave us… (Heavy sigh) That leaves us with Wish Upon. If you’ve seen anything in the Wishmaster franchise or are familiar with the cursed wish trope, you don’t really need to see Wish Upon. A basic breakdown, a girl comes across a magic box that grants her seven wishes, but each time she makes a wish, someone close to her dies in an over the top, Final Destination-esque way. If she makes her seventh and final wish, she’ll die. I think the oddest thing about this movie was that there was one scene where it tried to build up the drama by showing Clare’s (the protagonist’s) friends in a bunch of dangerously precarious situations and leave the audience guessing who’s going to die which led me to infer that all of her friends were idiots and likely didn’t need a cursed wishing box. In short, the movie’s not very good. 16/10/17 (Monster Movie Monday): La Llorona Let’s do something a bit different here. As Monster Squad featured a lot of universal monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Wolfman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc.), I thought I’d hop down South for some well-known monsters in different cultures. I decided to go with La Llorona given that that spirit was present in a lot of Nicaraguan culture. La Llorona (1933) has the distinction of being one of the first movies to tell the story of La Llorona. La Llorona is a legend about a woman who kills her child so she can be with her lover. Disgusted by her actions, her lover abandons her and she takes her own life. She spends the afterlife wandering the streets, looking for her child’s spirit (abducting children) and taking revenge on the man who spurned her (i.e. killing any man she encounters). To be honest, this movie was a bit hard to get through. It is in Spanish and it is in black-and-white with constant static throughout. The cry of La Llorona, which is capable of killing grown men, really doesn’t sound good. I think they probably would have been better not trying to make it audible as it can be a bit distracting. I’m glad I saw the movie, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have been better watching the 1960 version or some of the more modern retellings as this has quite a bit of padding. 17/10/17 (Too Lazy Tuesday): The Deadly Spawn The Deadly Spawn was requested by MikeMackdee and I can see why. This movie epitomizes B-Monster movies of the 1970’s-1980’s. It’s got cheesy line delivery, 80’s movie schlock, and practical effects gore. The Deadly Spawn tells the story of parasitic worm-like creatures who crash to Earth on an asteroid and proceed to eat their way through a small town. It’s your standard fair in terms of alien/monster sci-fi/horror, but it really shines in terms of the practical effects. The practical effects are really great here and the sound effects they include alongside the monsters does a good job. Fun facts: This movie has a bit of a spiritual successor in the 1990 movie Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor. The movie was originally called Deadly Spawn II: The Metamorphosis. All in all, if you’re in the mood for a sci-fi monster movie and want to see some great and gory practical effects, you really can’t go wrong with The Deadly Spawn. 18/10/17 (Wreck a Franchise Wednesday): Candyman: Day of the Dead. Let me level with you all here, I really enjoy the original Candyman. It was based on Clive Barker’s “The Forbidden” and has an excellent theme that builds from a quiet piano to a screaming organ that crescendos in the penultimate scene of the movie. It’s haunting and sets up the scene perfectly. That theme is not present here. Why is Candyman: The Day of the Dead more poorly received than the others? The biggest reason I can see is that it hits the exact same beats as the original and Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh and really feels like a skipping record. It follows a female descendent of Candyman’s former lover that he pursues in a bloody attempt to win her over by murdering those close to her until she has no one left but the Candyman. They happen to re-state his origin story multiple times in this straight-to-DVD release to the point of nausea. Tony Todd is great as usual. Unfortunately, that’s about all that really can be said about this movie. It tries to wrap up the series effectively, but the characters really aren’t that interesting. The racist cop tropes feel pointlessly shoe-horned in to the movie. Really the subtext of the original and its focus on urban legends and how they’re created (with Helen herself becoming one at the end) is lost here. The character burns a painting and destroys the Candyman, how does that discredit an urban legend? This movie isn’t terrible, but it isn’t good either. 19/10/17 (Thursday Fursday): Rogue Let’s take this Thursday Fursday into the water with a killer crocodile movie from 2007. But which one? Primeval, Black Water, and Rogue were all released in 2007 and are horror films about killer crocs (Gustave and Sweetheart respectively). As per Anarchic Operations request, I’ll be watching Rogue (2007), a film by the same director who did Wolf Creek. Rogue follows a boat of tourists in Kakadu National Park (Australia) that find themselves stranded with a killer crocodile stalking and killing them. The tour guide gives information on crocodiles which builds them up as a killing machine while not coming off as over the top. I will say this, the movie does a better job at building suspense than Primeval of Black Water. The scenes inside the crocodile’s cave are pretty tense. Based on a true story should always be taken with a grain of salt. Despite being based on a real crocodile named Sweetheart who was over 5 meters long, there’s no evidence that the alligator ever killed a human. In fact, when it was captured the crocodile ended up drowning when it got tangled up in a log. Something tells me that would have made for a really anti-climactic conclusion to the movie. 20/10/17 (Foreign Film Friday): Train to Busan Train to Busan was recommended by ShadowSwimmer77 and it’s definitely worth it. I do have a soft spot in my heart (and my head) for zombie movies, but lately there’s been a bit of over-saturation in the genre. Luckily the Korean film Train to Busan is a real shot to the head (no more puns!) for the genre. It surprisingly has a lot of heart and an interesting set-up to make this probably one of the best zombie movies I’ve seen for the past few years. Train to Busan focuses on passengers in a train as they struggle to survive in a zombie outbreak. The characters seem like they may be two-dimensional at first, but the movie really fleshes them out (I can’t stop). There’s Seok-Woo is a business man who’s more focused on business than his daughter and her school events, a baseball team, and a homeless man who witnessed the initial zombie attacks. The movie follows them as they try to survive, all while heading towards their destination in Busan. I won’t go into any more detail as you should really watch this one. The movie is thick with action and tension as the cars start filling up and people start moving backwards from the zombies’ advance. They do deliver punchlines in-between to help alleviate the tension before cranking everything back up (the lavatory scene). I gotta say, this is probably going to be a strong contender for the best movie of this Horr-tacular. 21/10/17 (Showdown Saturday) Happy Ito-ween! Junji Ito is a pretty prolific author and his stories cover a wide range of topics, but a majority are horror-related. His style is heavily influenced by body horror and features detailed drawings. Today we’re going to be comparing two of Junji Ito’s works that have gotten live action movies. So without further adieu, Tomie vs. Uzumaki. Tomie: Tomie is a lot more accurate to the original series (given that each series is a chapter, this makes it much more easier than Uzumaki which is more of a novel.) This film seems to be heavily influenced by “Kiss” and “Photograph”. I’ll also note that the film seems more restrained as there isn’t a whole lot of body horror (mutations) which does feel a bit disappointing given what the series is known for. The movie also feel a bit more drawn out and the climax isn’t the greatest. Uzumaki: I went into this with pretty low expectations. Uzumaki by Junji Ito has a lot of detailed drawings that seem like they’d be impossible to do with live action, and that was the case. Additionally there are multiple parts to the story and they really didn’t have enough time to effectively tell it. They were for a surreal ending which worked, but a lot of their other choices really didn’t. An ashed cigarette randomly comes with a mini-digital explosion. The effects really don’t look good and a lot of the acting feels like it needs more guidance. All in all, I really can’t recommend this one. In the end, Tomie kind of wins by default. It’s not an excellent movie, but it’s more faithful to the plot than Uzumaki and really avoids a lot of the pitfalls that came with Uzumaki. Unfortunately, I can’t really recommend either film (Tomie or Uzumaki) as they’re each pretty flawed. I would just recommend sitting down and reading through Junji Ito’s catalogue if you’re looking for some real unnerving Halloween fun. 22/10/17 (Cinema Sunday): It Comes at Night Loved by critics, receiving mixed reviews from audiences, It Comes at Night has been quite a polarizing movie. A lot of audiences disliked the lack of conclusive ending and the general lack of any visible enemy (plague people) despite building reference to it throughout the movie. So, how does this movie stack up to the lofty accolades critics have given it versus audience’s lukewarm reaction? It Comes at Night tells the story of a family that isolates themselves in a cabin to avoid a plague. The family soon discovers another family which they allow to live on the premises and the sense of distrust and paranoia that eventually pervade everything. This movie does a great job of building up its characters and creating a sense of paranoia and psychosis. The music and cinematography are great. They devote a lot of time to building up the mistrust between the two families. You don’t need to look any further than the trailer to get that sense. There is a lot that gets left up to your own interpretation, but I feel like it’s being used to build up the nebulousness of what is happening. It engenders a sense of paranoia and distrust that really help set up the atmosphere. All in all, I enjoyed this one and would recommend it for anyone looking for a suspenseful movie. 23/10/17 (Monster Movie Monday): The Host I decided after a bit of an emotional onslaught that a bit of light-heartedness was in order. As such, I decided that I’d give The Host (2006) a watch. It’s a comedy/monster horror movie that has received a lot of praise for its story, characters, and special effects. Is it a great movie that deserves its 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, yes, it is. The movie follows a family who is trying to rescue their youngest from the clutches of a formaldehyde-mutated monster. It does a good job giving you very flawed characters who are attempting to deal with the absurdity of the situation they’re finding themselves in. It hits all the marks for a monster movie: bumbling government intervention that makes the matter worse, a cool-looking monster, and a chemical that mutates a random animal into a hulking monstrosity. Fun facts: The inciting event in which a mortician in Seoul under the orders of a U.S. superior (one Mr. McFarland) dumped a large amount of formaldehyde down the drain is in fact real. It caused pretty large blowback and political outrage. I’d say if you’re in the mood for a monster movie and looking for a more recent one, you aren’t going to be disappointed with this one. Its comedy works nicely, the characters are entertaining, the special effects look pretty cool for being over a decade old, and the final fight (set to classical music) is something of beauty. 24/10/17 (Too Lazy Tuesday): Murder Party Sheena recommended this a while ago and after watching Green Room, I decided to give it a go. It was basically shot for no money in 2006 and found a 2007 release. If you’re a fan of Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, you’ll definitely find something to enjoy here. Christopher finds an invitation to a Murder Party which turns out to be a trap by a bunch of art students looking to turn his murder into an art installation. Hilarity ensues when it’s revealed everyone is incredibly incompetent (one mistaking acetic acid, vinegar, for a caustic acid). The character escapes from being trapped in a supply closet with the most MacGuiver-esque invention ever created. It quickly devolves into splatstick comedy with highlights on the characters’ pretentiousness and incompetence. The humor is really on point. The movie does it’s best to subvert expectations and build up the hilarity. A lot of the costumes worn are references (Blade Runner Replicants, The Warriors with the Furies, a chainsaw named Ol’ Painless, etc.) It takes a while for it to build up to the humor and conflict, but it’s definitely worth it. It’s a gory comedy of errors. If you’re up for a lot of dark humor, you’ll definitely find something to enjoy here. 25/10/17 (Wreck a Franchise Wednesday) Exorcist II: The Heretic. Whereas most horror movie franchise slide downhill as time goes on with the worst entries being the latter ones after all the good ideas had been explored, The Exorcist series took an immediate face-plant with its second film. It’s a bit of an anomaly as the first film is widely regarded as the standard for horror and the latter movies in the franchise are slowly rising in quality (not consistently unfortunately). Let’s start with the plot and try and figure out what went wrong. The film revolves around Father Lamont and Regan as they attempt to banish the Assyrian demon Pazuzu away. The plot is progressed through an object known as the synchronizer which allows people to align their brainwaves. Fun facts: During the initial screening, The Exorcist II was laughed at by a number of patrons. William Peter Blatty (author of the original) was reported to have been the first person to start laughing. What possibly went wrong? I think the biggest problem was that the film tried to separate itself too much from the original. While the original focuses on rational thinking (with the priests debating if Regan is even possessed for a majority of the film), the sequel goes a more outlandish route with the synchronizer, trip-y visuals, and a general sense of pretentiousness. I would say that branching out with sequels is a good thing, but you still have to remain faithful to the original and I think that was The Exorcist II: The Heretic’s biggest problem. 26/10/17 (Thursday Fursday): Eight-Legged Freaks Mikemacdee recommended Eight-Legged Freaks and since I enjoyed it when I was younger, I figured it’d be a great addition to animal-theme horror movies (I’ve covered mammals, avians, and now arachnids). I originally had Arachnophobia slated for this section, but since both fit a lot of the same points and I feel like Arachnophobia has already gotten quit a bit of spotlight, so I’d do this one. Eight-Legged Freaks is an obvious send-up to B horror movies. The premise is on point with a lot of its predecessors in which a gigantic ______ (lizard, crocodile, shrimp, horde of rabbits, etc.) overrun a town that the townspeople have to defend. A lot of its humor borders and splatstick with the odd sound effects thrown in. I do enjoy a lot of the humor and think it’s an overall enjoyable movie if you’re in the mood for a cheesy, B sci-fi/horror movie. Fun facts: The movie was originally slated to be called “Arac Attack”, but David Arquette improvised a line (during the radio tower shotgun scene) that the director (Ellory Elkayem) enjoyed so much he made it the movie’s title. More fun facts: Ellory Elkayem also directed gems like: Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave and Return of the Living Dead: Necropolis which were the last two films in the Return of the Living Dead franchise. The reasons why these two movies killed off that franchise are… pretty apparent. 27/10/17 (Foreign Film Friday): Grave Encounters Let’s go to our neighbor up north for a bit of found footage horror. This was recommended by Vngel. A bit of forewarning, I am not the largest fan of found footage horror movies (as seen in my review of Devil’s Due). I like the idea of them creating a realistic medium, but there generally a lot of issues with the execution (do these cameras have infinite batteries, why is the quality so good, why are they still recording, etc.?). Will Grave Encounters fall into the same pitfalls, let’s find out. Grave Encounters was shot in Coquitlam, British Columbia (Canada) at Riverview Hospital. It follows a paranormal tv show (Grave Encounters) investigating Collingwood Psychiatric Hospital (located in Maryland) and finding themselves trapped in the abandoned hospital which was host to Satanic rituals and sadistic experiments. I actually will say the fact that a majority of these cameras are set up for the purpose of a fictitious show does give it a bit more credibility rather than someone who is filming their lives 24/7. I’ll also concede that the opening thirty minutes feels like an entertaining parody of Ghosthunters and Paranormal Cops (which is a real series which features real grown mean shouting at ‘ghosts’.) Unfortunately they really try to shoe-horn in the satanic aspect and it feels really forced and clumsy. I’d say if you’re a fan of found footage movies, this will be a nice addition to your collection, if you’re not, this isn’t going to change your mind. It feels like a Blair Witch movie where they decided to try and remove all subtlety and have the monsters/ghosts make spooky faces at the camera. 28/10/17 (Showdown Saturday) Vampire Hunter D vs. Gyo It’s an animated horror showdown. I polled Twitter to see which movies I should watch for showdown Saturday. Out of City of Rott, Gyo, Perfect Blue, and Vampire Hunter D, the winner by a landslide was Vampire Hunter D. As such, I decided to pick Gyo to go up against it as I’d already seen Perfect Blue and City of Rott is a bit more of a comedy. So let’s see how Hideyuki Kikuchi’s seminal work compares against Junji Ito. Gyo. If you’re not familiar with the premise, is about… Where do I start? Probably at the most ridiculous section. Gyo is about fish who swarm Tokyo by using little land walkers which run on their decomposition. They’re capable of transmitting a virus which makes people extremely bloated and gassy which results in them being strapped into the same locomotion machines and terrorizing people. The movie while it switched up characters, actually follows pretty close to the story. The animation is great and disgusting. My only real complaint is that there’s a lot of awkward fan-service that really had no place in the movie (fully clothed sex scene, octopus tentacle attack, random nudity, etc.). Vampire Hunter D is a pretty popular series. I remember picking up Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust from Blockbuster as a kid so I decided to watch the 1985 original. Going in, I wondered why this was the only movie to actually get votes in the poll, and then I watched it. The animation is beautiful. Despite being over thirty years old, this rivals a lot of animation you’d see today. Vampire Hunter D follows a Dhampir who is tasked with protecting a girl against a vampire count. The action is great and the movie is well-drawn. Vampire Hunter D wins it. While I do enjoy the undertones of love (what would you do if your significant other was horribly deformed) and grieving in Gyo, it unfortunately felt a bit too much like it was trying to appeal to teenage boys (which is odd considering it’s a movie about fish-machine hybrids who are powered by farts). I’d definitely recommend checking out Vampire Hunter D if you’re looking for a vampire movie. I’d recommend Gyo if you’re looking for an insane premise with a bit more of a horror slant to it. 29/10/17 (Cinema Sunday): The Snowman Join me for a moment as I take you on a journey of disappointment with The Snowman. What makes this film fail on so many levels? Is it the terrible poster, the ridiculously oblivious characters (I kid you not, there is a scene where Michael Fassbender looks at a serial killer’s note that prominently features a snowman, then he looks up and stares at a snowman, and then narrows his eyes as if he’s deep in thought.), the abrupt, almost unfinished style of editing and shooting, or the formulaic plot where you can guess who the killer is within the first thirty minutes? Those things. All of those things are what make the film fail. On the plus side, there are a lot of good actors that have converged into this terrible movie. It has Michael Fassbender, J.K. Simmons, and Val Kilmer all in it. Unfortunately they can’t save the film (which is a shame because I heard that they were given all the clues). The Snowman tells the generic tale of a Detective trying to catch a serial killer who dismembers their victims and leaves a snowman at the scene of every crime. If you read that premise before and thought it was overused, you have no need to watch The Snowman as it does nothing else beyond that idea. Fun facts: This is based on the seventh novel by Jo Nesbø in his Harry Hole (phrasing) series. The scene at the end of the movie sets up the killer for the next book in his series which likely will never develop due to this movie’s poor reception, poor audience turnout, and poor quality. 30/10/17 (Monster Movie Monday): Pumpkinhead Let’s get ready to wrap up the festivities with a bit of a cult classic. Pumpkinhead did not really gel with audiences back in 1988, but since then it has had a sequel, two made-for-tv movies, a comic book and is slated to be re-made in the near future. So let’s take a look at Pumpkinhead and see if it deserves the cult following it’s accumulated. Pumpkinhead tells the story of Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen returns!) who summons the titular monster for revenge after the accidental death of his son. The monster rampages amongst the group and kills anyone who tries to stop it. The practical effects are great and it puts an interesting spin on the revenge trope. Fun fact: Lance Henriksen isn’t the only accomplished actor in the cast. Mushroom, who played the dog Gypsy also starred in Gremlins as Barney. I enjoyed this movie. It addressed a problem I have in a lot of revenge murder movies in which the person wishing for revenge actually has little to do with the movie. Movies like Gingerdead Man have them as a catalyst for the plot and then they vanish. Here Harley witnesses the destruction he’s caused and has him actually go out to try and stop it. I have to say, it’s a refreshing take. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a monster movie with some interesting characterization. 31/10/17 (Too Lazy Tuesday): Horror-Tacular Spook-o-ween Boo-nanza It’s a horror movie extravaganza! What will I be watching? I’ll be watching a lot of recommended movies as I got a dozen plus recommended to me that I was unable to get to. How many will I watch? You’ll just have to stick around and find out. Why am I doing this? I don’t even know where to start… Paranormal Activity: Derpy recommended this to me and even though I’ve already seen it (I watched it in Nicaragua and the final scene was so frightening to a child that they ended up leaving the room and watching it through the cracks), I decided to watch it first. I can see why this garnered the attention it has. It was a relatively new idea at the time and the marketing ploy where people had to request movie theaters to play it really ingratiated audiences to the film. Onto the negatives, really it’s hard to watch this movie and not realize that there are five more after this that are going to be marked decreases in quality and story. It kind of defeats the purpose being an original idea (a movie based almost entirely around a few set up cameras) if you’re going to repeat it ad nauseam each year for the next eight years. The Abominable Dr. Phibes Russ recommended this one, and for good reason. It’s got Vincent Price in it and given that he’s probably my favorite horror actor, this is essential viewing. Fun fact triple threat: This was advertised as Vincent Price’s 100th movie. Vincent Price was known to memorize every line in a movie (not just the ones spoken by his character). The vampire bats actually seem to just be fruit bats. Let’s get on with Price-o-ween then. The movie itself tells the tale of Dr. Phibes who is disfigured in a car crash exacting his revenge of doctors he believed killed his wife (via incompetence) with ten gruesome tableaus mimicking the ten biblical plagues. This movie is campy and entertaining. Give it a watch yourselves if you’re looking for something this Price-o-ween. The Gate: Cathy recommended this one and for good reason. The movie makes excellent use of claymation for unsettling monsters and forced perspective to make grown actors appear more diminutive. The story is about a family that removes a stump from their yard, unearthing a geode which acts as a gateway. When the parents leave for three days, the gate opens and the children must defend themselves against demons, ghouls, and shapeshifting monsters. I think what I enjoy about this movie the most is that it’s pretty creative. There’s a scene where Terry, a boy who lost is mother at a young age, is tricked into believing his hugging his mom who’s returned and it pulls back to reveal it’s the dog who died earlier in the film. For being PG-13, this movie actually has a number of scenes that are pretty unsettling. All in all, I think this definitely deserves its cult classic title. John Carpenter’s: The Fog Let’s go to some classic John Carpenter as this is Carpenter-o-ween after all. The Fog is an enjoyable movie with a massive amount of references (more on that below) and good practical effects. It tells the story of a Californian coastal town that is beset by the dead (in retaliation for their murder centuries prior) who arrive in the fog. The 1980’s version was so successful that it actually got a remake in 2005. Fun facts: This movie is oozing with references. A radio broadcast mentions Bodega Bay (Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds), Waitley Point (A misspelled reference to the Whatley family in H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror), and Arkham Reef (Arkham is another mainstay of Lovecraft’s stories). The coroner is named Dr. Phibes. The line “Look for the fog..” also imitates The Thing from another World’s final line: “Watch the skies…”. Feel free to let me know what references you found. Pet Semetery: Onto a movie that Stephen King claims is the only novel he’s written that scared him. This is a classic for a reason. Fun facts: Bruce Campbell was originally set to play the lead and George Romero was almost the director. Take a moment to think about how drastically different the movie may have been with those two changes. The movie is emotional overkill. It really drives home the impact the loss of a child can have on a family and the things it can make a person do. As always, this is a good adaptation (given the 375+ page novel) and the scenes involving the murderous child and cruel cat Church attacking the old man are absolutely terrifying if you have a raised bed. Definitely worth a watch. Best of 2017’s Horr-tacular: This was a bit of a toss-up between Green Room and this one. Unfortunately Green Room comes off more as a thriller and while it does have some great lines, it doesn’t quite hold up to its opponent. Train to Busan: It had to be this one. The movie has great effects, is well acted, tells an engaging story, gives an interesting premise to the zombie genre, and genuinely makes you care about the characters. There really isn’t anything else I can say about the movie other than ‘you should really watch it’. Worst of 2017’s Horr-tacular: Good Lord the choices I have. Demon possessed lamps, cursed Chinese wishing boxes, Not Hellraiser and just a hallucination, and Rings. So many choices and it has to be The Bye Bye Man. Whereas with the other movies, you can laugh at it, The Bye Bye Man is just a cheap Slenderman/Bloody Mary knockoff with terrible effects and plot issues. This movie is bad. More than that, this movie is a time vampire. It is the cinematic equivalent of a shrug. I can’t recommend The Bye Bye Man as a ‘so bad it’s good’ movie. Conclusion And so that brings this Halloween Horr-tacular to a close. To tell you the truth, five movies was a bit of overkill, but there’s a bit of method to the madness. As some of you are aware, I was recently accepted into a Veterinary Program. I am starting university in mid-December. As I am fully aware of the work required to learn Veterinary Medicine, I will be unable to do this silly little horror movie marathon and admin-ing that I’ve been doing for the past four years. As such, I’ll be stepping down in December and leaving the wiki in the more than capable hands of Cleric, Dupin, Banning, and Christian. Thank you all for contributing interesting and entertaining stories and for helping me improve my own writing while I tried to help others. I’ll still try to poke my head in from time to time, but I think it’s necessary for me to step down so some other people can try to step up. I’ll probably be active until December and I’ll turn in my admin badge and gun then. Thanks for everything. I hope you all had a great Halloween. I enjoyed it with all of you guys. Category:Blog posts